Iraq ousted ISIS, but ‘Mosul can never be the same again’

(CNN)A few days ago, Mahmoud Saeed boarded a plane for a trip that is sure to be filled with trepidation.

Still, he knew what he might find. And at the same time, he couldn’t fully prepare for the scenes of devastation that would await him.

The acclaimed Iraqi author had not seen his beloved hometown in six long years. And while Mosul had been freed from the so-called Islamic State, it would never be the same.

He knew that when he finally arrived, the city that shaped him from a young boy to manhood would be unrecognizable. Mosul had survived thousands of years of myriad rulers and cultures, but ISIS dealt it a death knell.

A year ago, Iraqi forces launched a military campaign to oust the hardline extremists from Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province. By the time Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi arrived in the city in July to declare victory, nearly 900,000 people had been displaced from their homes.

And Mosul was destroyed.

In the eight hard months of fighting, more than 500 buildings were obliterated and thousands others damaged, United Nations satellite imagery shows. Hardly a structure went unscathed in the historic Old City on the west bank of the Tigris River, where the fighting was fiercest. Nothing was left of Mosul’s heart and soul except charred and mangled structures.

ISIS burned books and bombed ancient sites, including the famed al-Nuri mosque and its leaning al-Hadba minaret that had graced the Mosul skyline for decades and engendered a sense of belonging for its native sons and daughters. The mosque was to Moslawis what the Eiffel Tower is to Parisians. Now residents say they hail from the city of the bombed mosque.

The destruction was apocalyptic, far greater than anyone had expected.

Saeed and his fellow Moslawis had watched from near and far. With their own eyes or through the eyes of their relatives. On television and in newspapers.

Saeed knew what to anticipate, and yet he braced himself. How can anyone prepare for something like this?

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Saeed had been persecuted for his words. He eventually fled and found freedom as a writer. But he was forced into the hard life of a refugee in Chicago, and the longing for home grew.

He felt helpless as Daesh, the Arabic name for ISIS, took hold and his family in Mosul cowered under militant rule. Earlier this year, he says, his sister’s grandson was beheaded.

“I cannot fully feel until I see it for myself,” he told me before embarking on his long journey home. “Maybe then, I can write about it.”

But the forces that destroyed Mosul are unlike wildfires that can be doused, hurricanes that eventually stop churning or even guns that finally fall silent.

I heard two main themes in what they told me. A return to normalcy would be a long and laborious undertaking. And, beyond the deaths and destruction, the hardline extremists had put a firm end to something critical that had already been eroding in Iraq: trust.

Lack of trust

Mohammed Al Mawsily was already fighting ISIS when Iraqi forces launched their assault on October 17 last year. Except Al Mawsily never picked up a gun. His war consisted of two things ISIS hated: music and truth.

I met Al Mawsily in Iraq last October when everything about the radio station had to be kept underground, including his identity — Al Mawsily is not his real name; it means “from Mosul.” He risked his life so Iraqis around the world could listen to the otherwise silenced voices of Mosul.

Mosul is now free of Daesh, Al Mawsily tells me over the phone, but he has not stopped telling stories from his hometown, one that is still in chaos.

He describes a city that has no rule of law, no coordinated traffic flows. A city that is divided — all the bridges linking the west and east banks were destroyed. Although some temporary bridges have been put up, they are not enough for Mosul, which once boasted 2 million people. It can take hours to cross the Tigris these days.

East Mosul is a paradise compared to the west, where people lack clean water, electricity and access to health care. The need to handle traumatic injuries has shifted to rehabilitation and longer-term care, but few hospitals and medical facilities have the resources to step in.

And then there is that word again. Trust.

People don’t trust that hundreds of millions of dollars of UN aid is being spent to rebuild Mosul, Al Mawsily tells me. They’re aware of high levels of corruption in Iraq and see little evidence of progress.

They lack confidence in the Shiite-controlled Baghdad government to do right by them. They question the allegiances of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the Shiite militias controlling their Sunni-majority city. For the first time in his life, Al Mawsily says, he is routinely witnessing Shiite parades, which have the potential to stoke ethnic tensions.

The lack of trust permeates and taints every aspect of life.

“Under Daesh, people were betrayed by their relatives and neighbors,” he says. “And what of the Daesh supporters and their families? How will they be treated?

“Today, we have a city that is semi-paralyzed.”

People are looking for work, he says, but where are the jobs? Meanwhile, rents in East Mosul have skyrocketed as the western half remains in darkness.

“We are facing quite an impossible mission to return to normal,” Al Mawsily says. “We need an extraordinary effort to heal the city.”

If that effort is not mounted, if the problems are not addressed, then ISIS will be back. That is Al Mawsily’s fear.

‘We can’t cry. We can’t complain’

Others I speak with agree with Al Mawsily’s dire prediction. One, a historian and blogger from Mosul who also risked all by publishing words that were anathema to ISIS, made a list of tasks he says need to be tackled immediately. Among them:

• Build a local police force with training and expertise and prevent other forces with sectarian agendas from exercising authority in Mosul.

• Turn over reconstruction to private and foreign companies.

• Establish a security and judicial system in conjunction with government ministries, civil institutions and the UN. Ensure fair trials for those charged with ISIS crimes.

• Rehabilitate the Old City in accordance with its previous style.

• Establish a council to oversee all religious sects and monitor discourse to prevent hate speech or extremism.

“It will take years to finish the basics,” the historian tells me over the phone. His blog is called Mosul Eye. He still wants his identity shielded for fear of repercussion.

<

div class=”el__gallery-showhide” js__gallery-showhide”>

<

div class=”el__gallery-showhide” js__gallery-showhide”>

“All our lives were destroyed in front of our eyes and we are unable to do anything. We can’t cry. We can’t complain. We can’t move. We just watch the destruction.”

There is silence on the phone.

I try to imagine how it must feel to see a cherished hometown demolished before you. It is, he says, as though your mother died.

“Mosul can never be the same again,” he says.

But perhaps it can be better.

The Mosul Eye blogger refuses to stop dreaming of the day that his beloved city will be alive again with music, art, libraries, markets and festivals. He looks into the future and sees a modern and developed Mosul growing from the ashes — one that attracts tourists from around the globe.